Ship in a Bottle - Kronun

Introduction: Ship in a Bottle - Kronun

Hi again,

16th century Swedish navy flagman galleon Kronun was my second choice after, probably, the most famous Swedish historical ship – Vasa. But the last moment, due to pictures I found on google, I decided to go for Kronun. Maybe one day I will come back for Vasa as well.

Step 1:

By the way (readers below 21 must skip this section), bottle content evacuation leaving space for ship is one of the most pleasant steps in ship-in-a-bottle building :)

Step 2:

Beginning as always – googling for pictures, later working with PowerPoint to scale ship as much as possible fill interior of the bottle. Bigger ship is, nicer it looks.

I had nice flat bottle of tequila, with big interior space, but relatively narrow bottle neck, so all in one piece ship would not fit. In fact, if to scale correctly to fill bottle interior up to maximum, hull must be done in 3 pieces, only then they can pass bottle neck – two for lower part of the hull and one for upper deck with rigging attached. To help with assembly in side of bottle, I drilled two holes in each side and central part, and glued piece of toothpick to one part.

Step 3:

Material for hull I did from tea sticks, glued like sandwich with PVA glue. The reason I did from tea sticks – some parts of the ship will be left as natural wood, so tea sticks are giving texture similar to sideboard planks. Several ships now that I use tea sticks instead of carving hull from solid chunk of wood and results I like more.

Step 4:

In fact, all techniques that I use are well described in my previous instructables

All wooden parts were treated with wood oil, to give nice weathered look and also for preservation. Railings were made of paper stapler wire and hard paper.

Step 5:

Thin copper wire, twisted of 2 or 3 pieces, was nice to mimic medieval decorations of that era ships. For royal carvings on aft and bow of the ship I used foil from wine bottle – very plastic material – inscribed by hand using awl from the back side. Deck details – same stapler wire and paper.

Step 6:

Launches were made of hard paper, covered by piece of thin foil. Cannons are carved from toothpick and paced on hard paper.

Step 7:

Everything painted and dry brushed; for hull dry brushing I use hobby acrylic gold paint, for other parts – white. Aft lanterns are made of thin copper wire and “grown” CA crystal – many layers, giving enough time to dry. Two statues were fun to produce – mold form carved in a candle wax and filled by PVA glue. Piece of thin wire attached and everything painted gold acrylics.

Step 8:

Fabricating masts mast was quite long and boring job. First masts were carved from toothpick, then several wire rings and paper discs were glued to make platforms for each sections of mast. Treated with wood oil and some parts painted black. Shrouds were fabricated between each section of mast. For that I drilled transversal hole in upper part of each mast section where shrouds were crossed. Then, positioning them on piece of polystyrene, glued ladder ropes. On lower part of each mast section shrouds were positioned on wire ring, glued and cut excess. To position masts on deck lower shrouds were glued at the bottom of deck part. If you notice, there is small excavation carved on main hull for shrouds.

Folded sails are made of cigarette paper and glued by PVA to yards, made of grass straw. Finally, Swedish flags are color printed, glued two sides together and cut.

Step 9:

Two part of hull inserted into bottle, glued together by CA and then fixed on a bottom by clear epoxy. Deck part was slide-in between two aft accommodations, so was no need to glue it down. The front part will be holding down by stays.

Ship in a bottle! I did few mistakes, when assembling inside of a bottle, so was too late to fix. But anyway, I did enjoy a lot building this ship and trying new techniques.